Research from Ohio and Washington exploring how to estimate the impact changes in the built environment may have on travel behavior and total vehicle miles traveled have been added to the Resource Center best practices database.

Two goals in TransLink’s Transport 2040 strategy are to have most trips in the Metro Vancouver, BC, region occur by walking, cycling and transit and to have the majority of jobs and housing in the region located along the Frequent Transit Network. To that end Translink has created a number of transit-oriented development documents. Four of those have been added to the Resource Center best practices.

A 2012 report detailing the Bay Area Rapid Transit District's bicyle plan and a report measuring jobs created by pedestrian and bicycle access projects have been added to the Resource Center best practices database.

Simply having light rail doesn’t prompt people to drive less, according to researchers who looked at Denver’s existing light rail system. It is the integration of transit with the built environment that can prompt reductions in the vehicle miles driven.

The Sound Transit resolution establishing a system access policy for infrastructure and improvements to facilitate customer access to transit services has been added to the Resource Center best practices.

Editor's Note: In this week's excerpt from Are We There Yet? we return to the Thriving chapter and a discussion of how healthy lifestyles are encouraged with the adoption of traditional design components found in Opportunity Areas. The introduction to the Thriving chapter, "The Push For Complete Communities," in online here.
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The push for complete communities has gained real political muscle because of grave concerns about this country’s health. Take the problem of obesity, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considers to be “epidemic” in the U.S., and which is linked to diabetes, heart disease, cancer, strokes and chronic illness. A 2011 report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that in the last six years the rate of adult obesity nearly doubled in 17 states, and didn’t decrease in any. The CDC reported in 2012…

Editor's Note: This week's excerpt from Are We There Yet? focuses on the response as state and local officials work to craft "complete streets" regulations to make streets safer and more appealing for bikes, pedestrians and transit riders.
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The increased interest in making streets safer and more appealing for bikes and pedestrians has resulted in regional and state governments adopting “complete streets” policies mandating that all transportation policies and investments must take into consideration the safety and convenience of all users of the streets — not just drivers.
Complete streets are, according to the National Complete Streets Coalition, “designed and operated to enable safe access for all users. Pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit riders of all ages and abilities must be able to safely move along and across a complete street. Complete streets make it easy to…

Editor's Note: The street is the open area between buildings and for too long the sole priority has been on facilitating the movement of automobiles in that space. As the price of this auto-centric focus becomes clear with the rising pedestrian and bicycle fatalities, cities are setting new priorities. This week's excerpt from Are We There Yet? looks at how America's streets have become dangerous by design. This excerpt also includes a discussion of the modern oxymoron "free parking."
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It wasn’t that long ago that “the street” meant the entire open area between the buildings on either side, and that pedestrians had “undifferentiated dominion over both the sidewalk and the roadbed,” writes Christopher Gray in a 2011 op-ed in the New York Times. “Sidewalks were not pedestrian cattle pens but off-limits zones for vehicles . . . it’s a question of territory, and the pedestrian…

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The Half-Mile Circles blog is a place to share information about recent research, innovations and other issues related to TOD and livable communities. We also invite experts to talk about their work. Combined with Jeff Wood's The Other Side of the Tracks, the Half-Mile Circles blog is an opportunity for a daily dose of TOD, and allows you to weigh in with your own opinions. Usual blog rules apply; please keep the comment threads civil. To submit an expert article, contact Jeff Wood